quick links | We are all dead.

I haven’t had the time to post much lately, but here are some things I’ve been reading:

The US and Canada have taken different approaches to defining their official poverty threshold in recent years. We’ve solved this problem by not having one.
Nicholas Gruen has written about the need for more humility and open-mindedness from economists, following on from this paper which argues that economists should see themselves less as scientists and more as engineers.
The UK can now borrow more cheaply than Germany, challenging some of the narratives that have surrounded the Euro crisis.
Should Australia move to shore up bank funding in a more explicit way?
It’s the first edition of the ACTU Wages Report! By me! With graphs!
Did behavioural economics backfire on the Obama administration?
Dean Baker has a free e-book out called The End of Loser Liberalism, which is worth a read. He argues that progressives “have accepted a framing where conservatives want market outcomes whereas liberals want the government to intervene to bring about outcomes that they consider fair”.
Here’s a two part interview with Dean Baker about his book.
Interesting presentation by Peter Whiteford on inequality and social support in Australia.
Mike Konczal on how inequality got so bad in the US, and what can be done to fix it.
The “anxiety of the forever renter” in The Atlantic.
Why doesn’t Britain make things any more?

Kahneman on the dangers of over-confidence. We all know less than we think we know, and can predict the future with far less certainty than we think we can.
On a related note, read Koukoulas on Access Economics’ forecast of a budget deficit next year. The ability for firms like Access to generate headlines with mundane and obvious observations about the economy never ceases to astound.
An interesting speech by David Gruen on the Treasury’s “wellbeing framework” that ends up being about much more than that – including normative and positive approaches to inequality, and the role of equity and efficiency considerations in policy advice.
Brad DeLong lays out a simple, but quite profound, summary of recent US economic history, with a focus on monetary policy. It includes a “mea maxima culpa” for ignoring the lessons of Japan’s long stagnation.
Mike Konczal comprehensively refutes the idea that Fannie and Freddie were responsible for the subprime crisis (and thus the broader financial crisis and Great Recession that were to follow).
A new study by Katharine Bradbury of the Boston Fed finds that social mobility in the US has fallen as inequality has risen. A cautionary tale.

Quick links 25/11/11